"Wouldn’t all those rays also raise rates of skin cancer? Yes, but skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year." - Couldn't that be because people are following the recommendations to use sunblock and would be much worse if they weren't?

"Still, Weller kept finding evidence that didn’t fit the official story. Some of the best came from Pelle Lindqvist, a senior research fellow in obstetrics and gynecology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Lindqvist tracked the sunbathing habits of nearly 30,000 women in Sweden over 20 years. Originally, he was studying blood clots, which he found occurred less frequently in women who spent more time in the sun—and less frequently during the summer. " - Irrelevant to the question of sunscreen; exercise could be the explanation.

"Weller’s largest study yet is due to be published later in 2019. For three years, his team tracked the blood pressure of 340,000 people in 2,000 spots around the U.S., adjusting for variables such as age and skin type. The results clearly showed that the reason people in sunnier climes have lower blood pressure is as simple as light hitting skin." - Perhaps their research shows how they accounted for exercise, but it's the obvious confounding factor and oddly missing from the list this journalist included.

“I have not seen a skin cancer [in Addis Ababa. And yet Africans in Britain and America are told to avoid the sun.” - Besides the fact that there are in fact cases of skin cancer in Ethiopia, could this be because the life expectancy in Ethiopia is 15 years less than the west and melanoma is more common as you get older (though certainly possible for younger)?